When I Closed My Eyes
by oh sailor
Summary: Miranda reflects on Mexico [one shot]


A/N: this is a story that I've been planning for a _very_ long time. It's basically an account of Miranda's time spent in Mexico and how she changed and how confused she was with her feelings for Lizzie (which she'll never know if they were returned). Sort of dark, enjoy!

Warning: this story is rated PG-13 for drug use (non graphic) and sexual material (non graphic)

Disclaimer: I do not own _Lizzie McGuire _or any themes or characters mentioned on the show.

Mexico changed everything. When my parents first convinced me to go to Saltillo, Coahuilla for three months, I pictured the Mexico from Spring Break advertisements. Sunny skies, oceans that you could drown in by looking at for too long, romantic walks on warm sand with that hot life guard that you plan to spend forever with. I saw myself hand in hand with a faceless stranger, losing my virginity in a sand dune when the sun was going down.

The Mexico I got consisted of narrow streets, boys chasing skinny cats down alleyways, and a sun that you could barely see because of the smog that clouded the air. My grandparents spoke no English, and what English words they did know were either obscene or cuss words because my cousin Carlos had thought it would be a good joke to play.

Of course, I spoke barely any Spanish at all.

Abuelo Franco was determined to get through to me, and I spent several days in the back of his jeep with the sun beating down on my head, watching the sights of Mexico fly by. He took me to the market, and showed me how to haggle with the vendors and find the best price for sandals and wooden dolls with empty eyes and painted smiles. But, he had work to do, and a life to live, and I was on my own once again.

I had always been a bit of a loner, spending my time hanging out with Lizzie and Gordo, or nobody at all. If I fought with them, I had no friends. Lizzie and Gordo were my universe, my galaxy, and my life; and yet I was always a part from them in a strange and incomprehensible way. They were always together, laughing and flirting, the sparks that they were too blind to see constantly flying between them; and I always seemed to be pressed up against a glass wall, struggling to find a place in their world. "Friendship" was a carelessly used word in our dictionary. Lizzie and I had a friendship. Gordo and I had a friendship. Lizzie, Miranda, Gordo was a stupid lie I told myself over and over again so that I could make believe I was part of their world. For the brief period of time that Kate was friends with Lizzie and I, it was always Lizzie and Kate. No one else. No matter how many times Lizzie reassured me that Kate adored me, I knew she was wrong. Kate only wanted to be with Lizzie, and didn't want anything to do with the dark haired girl that tagged along with them to the movies and sat in silence as they giggled. Because Kate had a secret that she never told anyone, a secret that she only told me because she got smashed at a party I had soon after I returned from Mexico. People will tell you interesting things when they're drunk.

As I sat on the cold tiles of my bathroom floor, rubbing her back, she told me dreamily about the times in kindergarten when she used to teach Lizzie how to kiss under the slide at recess. She told me about the way Lizzie tasted and how she always wanted her. Kate wanted Lizzie for her own and had never stopped the longing for something she knew she could never have; even after Lizzie told her to stop because she didn't like kissing other girls, even if was "just practice." I don't think Kate even remembers what she told me that night in September.

Which brings me to my own secret. I loved Lizzie, and I think I still do. Somewhere near the beginning of seventh grade, I caught myself looking at Lizzie in a different way: a way that I never knew I could ever look at my best friend. The way her blond hair fell softly across her shoulders, or the way her lips were so perfectly glossed. I always seemed to be thinking about the way that she looked as she stepped out of her shower, a pink towel wrapped carelessly around her as she held up outfits for me to judge.

Eighth grade arrived, and with it a new longing, stronger than it ever was before. Lizzie was even more perfect, even more unreachable. And, to top it all off, Gordo loved her. He had told me his secret shortly after Lizzie started dating Ronnie and he caught a glimpse of them kissing at the park.

He ran to my house, letting it all go, sobbing against my shoulder and confirming what I had suspected for a long time. Even so, the new information hit me like a punch in the stomach. Lizzie would never choose me over Gordo…would never choose a girl over a guy.

Eighth grade was also the year of the communal shower. In seventh grade, after many letters from angry parents, the school board decided to close down the showers for the seventh graders. But, they reasoned that eighth graders should get used to showering in front of others before high school. Some girls brought bathing suits, but after their gym bags began to smell permanently like wet dog most of them gave up. Lizzie never brought a swimsuit. She was proud of her body and didn't really care if people looked at her. "It's not like anyone looks anyway!" She exclaimed once when Veruca brought a one-piece black suit to school. I fell silent. I couldn't help looking at Lizzie, couldn't help the way my eyes lingered on her breasts and on the curve of her thigh. But, everyone else looked so it didn't really matter anyway.

My feelings tormented me all year, and when my mother asked me if I would be willing to spend the last month of school and the rest of the summer in Mexico with my grandparents it was almost a relief to say yes. I had planned on going with Lizzie and Gordo to Rome for two weeks and then spending the rest of my summer hanging out; but as my longing for her mounted, I knew it was only a little while until I couldn't hide it anymore.

I guess I always knew I was a little bit different. I had a crush on Britney Spears when I was six, and most of the portraits in my pink room were of Britney in her most revealing outfits. I was fascinated with the way her hair fell across her shoulders and the way her soft skin looked.

My affections for Britney turned to my first grade teacher Margot Caplain. She was young and pretty and I often found myself wishing I could touch her skin and stroke her hair. I liked the pretty seventh graders, the strong and supple cheerleaders. When our class went to an exhibit on Greek and Roman art, instead of giggling over the stone men, I quietly let my eyes travel over the soft curves that the women had. I knew, deep down, that my fetish for girls was something that would not be tolerated. Even at six I had to hide myself.

And then, in third grade, there was Jenna. Before Lizzie and I were friends, there was always Jenna. She had the softest red hair, a light dusting of freckles across her nose, and she was always speaking her mind. We became instant friends, spending hours playing in the woods or sitting in my room as we beheaded the many Barbies my parents bought me. The first time we kissed was in a fort in the woods that we had built together. I can't always remember Jenna's face or hear her voice, but to the day I die I will remember the way her lips were soft and how she tasted like the lime Kool-Aid my mother made us everyday.

One day, as Jenna and I "practiced" French kissing in my room, my mom walked in on us. Jenna got sent home so that mom and I could have a talk. She demanded to know what was going on, and I weakly told her that we were just seeing what kissing was really like.

She patted me on the back and told me that it was just a phase. And so, all through my middle school years, I pretended to think that Johnny Depp was hot, and that Ethan Craft was God's gift to Hillridge. I didn't mind, so long as no on knew what was really in my heart. Jenna moved away shortly after that and I never heard from her again. Sometimes I wonder if she thinks about me.

But, as soon as I stepped off of the plane at the Saltillo airport, I knew that Mexico was a mistake. The smoke in the air made my head spin, and I was immediately overpowered by fifteen screaming relatives that I hadn't seen since I was about three. All of them smelled like a mixture of the city and laundry detergent and were exclaiming how I'd grown in rapid Spanish. My aunt Maria and her daughter Angelica drove me to their house. Since I couldn't understand a word either of them said, I stared out of the window and listened to _Mi Reflejo_, the Spanish version of Christina Aguilera's popular songs.

Their house was made of adobe, the walls peach colored and the air cool. Angelica showed me to my room, trying to engage me in conversation. When she realized that I didn't speak much Spanish, she switched to her broken English; asking me questions about my school and my home in poorly put grammar. I smiled and nodded, answering her questions in as few words as possible until she fell silent and left me alone in my room.

I found that there was a loft that led out onto the flat, tiled roof of the house and the roof became my sanctuary. I brought my guitar with me, and I spent hours playing songs that I had learned, and composing my own music which I kept in the journal that Lizzie had given me before I left.

My cousins tried to include me in their fun, tried to introduce me to their friends. But, as always, they just stopped trying. It was, after all, summer. They didn't want Miranda around.

When I wasn't on the roof, I wandered the market. There was something about it. I loved watching the kids licking ice cream cones and begging for the toys. I sat by the fountain and ate peeled apples and cantaloupe slices, watching the world pass.

Unfortunately, all my time spent alone gave me more opportunities to think of Lizzie. She and Gordo called occasionally, but they had homework to do and suitcases to pack for Rome.

After graduation Lizzie called me, sobbing, to tell me of the curtain fiasco. I did my best to be sympathetic, but it was hard not to laugh. Lizzie only got more clumsy as the years progressed, especially now that she had taken to wearing high heels all the time.

Mexico was three thousand miles from everything. Three thousand miles isn't a lot when you think about the world, but to a lonely fourteen year old it's everything. Everyone was moving on, living life and I was caught in a polluted city with nothing but a sketchbook and a guitar. Time was an oppressor and I was the slave that pushed up against an unmoving brick wall. Maybe that's why I agreed to get high with Angelica and Carlos.

They found me on the roof, watching the sunset, Angelica holding a bowl of pot in her hand. "Hey chica." She said, sitting down beside me. "Want to share a bowl?"

At that point I was desperate for company. The loneliness washing over me as my cousins lit it up and took a hit, watching me…daring me.

The second the toxins hit my body, I was flying. It's impossible to feel lonely when you're high. Everything made me giddy and we quickly moved into my room to keep from falling off the roof. I agreed to let Carlos give me a tattoo with the materials that he had been supplied by his friends. Now, my lower back is permanently imprinted with my name in Arabic. My parents screamed, my grandparents cried, and Angelica and Carlos were grounded for getting me high and tattooing me.

And then there was Jay, the one who helped take care of my loneliness before I saw Her in the market. I had seen him staring at me through his window, which was right across the street from mine. One night, as I sat on the roof, he climbed across the roof over to me and sat down. I learned that he had moved to Mexico when his mother died and how much he loved the city. He took me to all the places I never thought existed and, as we began getting closer, I hoped that my mother was right in saying that my feeling were a phase. The first time we kissed, the first time I had kissed anyone since those forbidden kisses with Jenna, I hoped with all my heart for fireworks. Jay was a nice guy, the sort most girls would be drooling over to have as their boyfriend. No luck. His lips were too moist, his hands too dry as they touched my face. I hated kissing him…hated the way he looked at me.

I lost my virginity to him in early June. The act of sex disgusted me. I hated the way his fingers felt as they explored my body, the way his mouth felt on all my hidden places. Jay never called me back. I didn't even care. Lizzie called me that night from Rome, telling me about the IMVAS and the kiss with Gordo…how excited she was that they got together. I laughed and exclaimed in all the right places, once again putting on the mask of supportive best friend. After the call was over, all I could do was cry.

A few weeks later, I saw Her. Claire. The most popular girl in Hillridge, other than Kate, in a market place in Mexico. She came with me to my house, telling me about how her parents were really Mexican and how embarrassed she was to have to come to Mexico every summer. She had told her friends that she was going to Cancun.

I don't know how things got so far between Claire and me. I never really liked Her, and She never liked me. But I was lonely and she was lonely…we both needed solace and we found it in each other. She told me on a number of occasions that if I told anyone she would ruin me or worse. I had no intention of letting anyone know that I had ever slept with Claire.

August 17th finally arrived and my family said our goodbyes to the city and to our relatives, promising to visit soon. I never wanted to hear the word "Mexico" again. Claire, surprisingly, came to see me before I left for Hillridge. Maybe it was only to remind me that she had been in Cancun and that she would kill me if I told, but I think she might have felt something more with me than loneliness being quenched on those long nights. As much as I disliked Claire, there was a new side of her I hadn't seen. There was a whole different girl under her concealer and lipgloss.

I never told Lizzie about the tattoo or the pot. She never knew that I'd slept with a guy and I never really knew what had brought her and Gordo together. Everything was different and I no longer told her everything that was going on in my life. It's like when I closed my eyes for a moment, I opened them and nothing was the same.

High school started and I slowly fell into the cracks of the social scene. I hated seeing Lizzie and Gordo together, hated watching them kiss and hug and be together while I was farther from my goal than I had ever been. We just grew apart as ninth grade faded into summer and summer faded into fall.

Now I'm a junior, still lost in a sea of perfect people. My skater friends make fun of Lizzie…what can I do but join in? She is not a part of my world, and yet she's everywhere to me. She's always with Gordo, her arms around his waist as Kate fixes her hair or seniors flirt with her. I just sigh and plod from class to class, wishing I had said something to her all that time ago.

Claire came back to me and once again I'm lying beside someone who is a substitute for someone else. I know that she cringes when I touch her hair and I flinch when her eyes take me in. She doesn't know me at all, and yet she knows me better than anyone else in the world. She's seen my whole being, and filled me up when I was so empty that I was caving in. And at the same time, she took away my heart and my laugh.

Maybe if I had said something to Lizzie, she'd be the one lying beside me in my room, my black sheets shielding us from the outside world. But it's too late. So I just press my mouth against Claire's and try to make myself whole.


End file.
